Julia smiled with relief.
‘Oh, thank you so much, darling. Tom will be so grateful. And I’ll go straight up to the attic now – I’ll keep you posted.’
When Julia had gone, Virginia pulled a sour face. ‘I hope you know Tom will be a disaster? Don’t go upsetting Rob and ruin your chances of snagging him.’
It was Emma’s turn to pull a face.
‘Mother, if Rob Holland was the last man on earth, I wouldn’t look at him twice. He’s rude, self-obsessed, arrogant and … did I mention rude?’
‘Beggars can’t be choosers, darling,’ said Virginia, waving her empty glass.
‘By the way, seeing as you’re giving things away, I don’t suppose you’ll be needing this decanter at the Stables, will you?’
For the first time in days, Emma laughed out loud.
Stella paced around the luxurious suite of the Soho Hotel, fussing about rearranging handbags on their plinths, knowing that the next three hours were make or break for the company. She was running on adrenaline, knowing that if she stopped she would close her eyes and probably not wake up for a week. Since her arrival in England almost a month earlier, Stella hadn’t even had time to unpack and settle into her new house in Chilcot, a small barn conversion on the edge of the village that cost more than she could afford. She barely saw any daylight as she left home for the Milford offices at dawn and often didn’t set off home again until midnight. She would spend the entire time in between hunched over her drawing board in the top-floor studio, designing handbags as if her life depended on it. The Milford archives had been a shambles, so Stella had fallen back on her own collection of vintage Milford handbags. She’d adapted the shapes, making them more contemporary, adding her own flourishes here and there, and spent hours with Ruan McCormack discussing the fine points of their manufacture. The result had been a small collection of twelve bags, samples of which had been made up in the softest leather ready for today’s press show. Today was pivotal for the business. Here, in this hotel suite, they would unveil their first collection to the fashion press. They would either laud Milford as the hot new label or condemn the company to a slow and lonely death. And if that’s not pressure, I don’t know what is, thought Stella, looking around the suite. They had, however, done a pretty good job, even if she did say so herself. The room was darkened and each of the twelve bags had been placed on pink Perspex plinths, each lit from below and spot-lit from above, giving each handbag an otherworldly glow of pure luxury. In fact, the whole room looked like it was displaying the crown jewels of some far-off exotic state.
‘But what if no o
ne comes?’ said Stella, eyeing the trays of canapés and rows of baby bottles of champagne lined up on a walnut table.
Emma looked at her watch. It was 12.30. The press invitation had stated a noon start and not one fashion editor had come within ten yards of the expensive suite.
‘Then we are eating crab claws and drinking Moët for the next month,’ she said nervously.
‘Of course people are coming. They are just fashionably late,’ said Zoe Miller the chic fashion PR whom Emma had hired for the launch of the Autumn/Winter line. It had been Zoe’s idea to send the invitation to the press show in a Milford chalk-white leather passport holder. Emma had winced at the cost, but as Zoe had pointed out, Milford were hardly a huge noise on the fashion scene and they were in direct competition with numerous other, rather more mouth-watering press events that week. Without an example of Milford’s new image, without a small bribe, there was a very real chance of them being totally ignored.
‘So what happens after this?’ asked Emma trying to fill in the awkward silence.
‘We send celebrities, editors and magazine fashion directors the key bag of the season. So I guess they all get this one,’ said Zoe holding up a large soft bag that was Stella’s favourite. It was a slightly smaller version of the handbag Emma had shown to – and which had so impressed – Cameron at the café. It was exquisite, the design bold yet practical, the materials and craftsmanship unrivalled. The creamy-soft calf leather had been selected with the greatest care and made more supple by a method called press and boarding. The bag’s jewel-like lock had been made by a local silversmith; the seams were all sewn by hand and folded over like the hems of a Hermès scarf. For Stella the love and skill that had gone into making the bags was a source of great pride, a far cry from the depressing Mexican sweatshop used by Cate Glazer, where hundreds of women worked for a pittance to produce bags that would be sold for twice their monthly wage. When it was finished, Stella had christened it the ‘1 00 Bag’ after listening to Emma’s theory about exclusivity. Milford were only going to make six hundred ‘1 00’ bags; one hundred in six different colours that Stella had selected from the palette gleaned from the catwalks at the recent international collections. That had been one of the benefits of designing and producing their Autumn/Winter line so late; they could colour co-ordinate their accessories line with the forthcoming season’s ready-to-wear.
‘Fashion editors will get a less expensive bag, of course, while fashion assistants can get something like a key-ring,’ continued Zoe, popping a canapé into her mouth.
‘Do we really need to give so many away?’ said Emma, instantly totting up the cost in her head. ‘I bet Hermès don’t give out hundreds of Birkins every season.’
‘No, they don’t,’ smiled Zoe. ‘They are an established venerable brand and they don’t need to seed,’ she said referring to the marketing ploy of giving celebrities and taste-makers free bags every season.
‘Well, good for them. I don’t want Milford bags being seen hanging off the arm of every Tom, Dick and Harry celebrity. I’m not sure consumers at the very top end of the market are impressed by that.’
‘But even Hermès has benefited from celebrities,’ continued Zoe. ‘In the 1950s Grace Kelly was snapped on the cover of Life magazine holding her Hermès shoulder bag in front of her pregnancy bump. Hermès renamed it ‘The Kelly’ and – Hey presto! – an icon was born.’
‘But even if you send celebs a bag you can’t be guaranteed they’ll use them,’ said Stella, remembering her time in LA. ‘Cate Glazer sent an ostrich-skin bag to this big-time actress once and the next week it was spotted on the arm of her cleaner.’
‘So, Emma. Who do you know?’ asked Zoe, sitting on the arm of a long cream sofa.
‘Oh, I’m best friends with Jennifer Aniston,’ she said with an ironic smile.
‘Marvellous! That’s a great start,’ chimed Zoe.
Emma shook her head, frowning.
‘Zoe, I was joking.’
‘Oh. Well, obviously I can send them to my contacts,’ said Zoe, completely unfazed.
Stella looked at her suspiciously. Stella had encountered Zoe’s kind – self-interested, mercenary – many times before at LA fashion parties. She wondered how many of their bags would end up in the back of Zoe’s own wardrobe or on the arms of her friends. She made a mental note to tip off Emma.
‘Otherwise we could get someone to endorse a product,’ continued Zoe. ‘But for the right celebrity, well, that fee could run into hundreds of thousands.’